Florida gal sent me a boxful yesterday; I should get it Friday. It weighs 10 POUNDS. LOLOL I can hardly wait for it to come. She sent me a pic of a couple of the big ones...........They are really big. It will be Christmas in June when that comes, for sure. And all I pay is postage. Which is rather exhorbitant, but, hey...........what's a girl to do????

Great!. 10 pounds of plants for postage?, wish I had some growing near me. Have fun with them and please show your treasures to us. They are not affordable in my area.

Well, Porkpal, not affordable here either, which is why I asked over on the original site on the Florida gardening forum. They just fall out of the trees down there, but in this one I hit paydirt, as the gal said that besides the wind that blew some down, the power company came through to trim trees and she asked that they leave any branches that had them on so she could *harvest* them for me. She said the guys just threw them on a pile by her door. What service, eh??? On medium sized air plant is usually around $20.00 at the garden centers.

I will enjoy seeing your photos. The ones that I have are small and all of them have flowered so far.

I took a couple pics with my phone yesterday showing some of the air plants growing in trees on a busy boulevard in the city. They are growing on Ramon trees, I need to look and see what those are in English. The leaves and branches of the Ramon are cut and sold to feed goats and the tree grows really fast. It seems to be a favorite of the airplants and orchids, it was the only tree that had them along the street.





edited to add: the Ramón tree is a Brosimum alicastrum, http://www.new-ag.info/en/focu... called a Maya nut or Maya breadfruit in English. Interesting stories connected to it, I learned something new. I had no idea it was so associated with the Maya and their cities.

Oh, sakes alive.............my box of airplants came today. Here is my ball form and wreath. The wreath had the ball moss in it before, but I wanted some air plants to put in it to finish filling it out. It boggles my mind to think what those airplants would have cost to fill that globe form. Some of them were HUGE!. I may have to make separate posts.........this site does not like to let me post more than one photo at a time.

HEre is the finished globe.

And the wreath. You can tell where the ball moss was and where I added the air plants.

Wonderful.

impressive

Very cool, Anna! Love your pics and plants! I had no idea Spanish moss would survive outside "in captivity." So cool!

Popping by to say how (I guess) happy my plant is, thanks to the great advice here, Ken in particular. Thanks again!

It's got a little pup on one side. I did leave it alone for 10 days when we went on vacation, but have dribbled a little water on it a couple times this past week. My Mom said it rained several times at her house nearby, so the humidity would have been extra high (100% vs. 98.5% - LOL!,) and if it was windy at all, some moisture would get on the Tilly when raining even though it's under the porch roof. Doesn't seem attached to the tree in any way, yet, but the appearance of the pup is really exciting to me.

On a side-note, it's really cool to have plants that can use the space other plants are already using.

Purpleinopp, the only reason the moss survives is it goes in the g'house when it gets cold. LOL

I spray my air plants most every day. I don't have a shady place to put them, so I keep them hydrated because they are in the sun.

Thanks, Anna! I figured they would have to come inside, but didn't know they would survive winter inside in captivity. Hopefully mine will do the same. We don't use the heat pump, so the humidity stays pretty good in here, no static hair. Spanish moss is a little less sensitive to cold, I think. It can survive out in the trees here but I don't think Tillandsia can.

The little pup is big enough to see well now. How are other people's Tillys doing?

I just found this thread again and it always makes me smile hearing folks talk about "Air Plants" (Tillandsia). We have a few different types that grow wild here in Florida.

Tillandsia usneoides (Spanish Moss) ........ T. recurvata (Ball Moss) .......................... T. setacea and ..................................... T. utriculata (Giant Air Plant):


I was in San Diego last week and went to Balboa Park and visited the Botanical Gardens there and in one corner of the botanical structure they had a large display of Air Plants, it kind of surprised me that anyone would find them interesting but I guess it's because they are so common here in Florida. This is the only photo I took, just one corner of the very large display:


I volunteer at our little Botanical Gardens here in town and after storms we are always finding tons of Spanish Moss and Air Plants on the ground. We sell some at our sales tables, give some away and sometimes we just pick them up and stick them back in the nearest tree. We have "Christmas in the Gardens" and "Spring in the Gardens" where different vendor's set up tables all around the gardens to sell their wares (all types of plants, crafts, home made honey, jams etc.). Last year on one of our work days I saved a couple of bags of air plants and spanish moss and made natural wreaths for our raffle table. I wish I had photo's but unfortunately I must not have taken any but the wreaths were very popular. I think the most popular was one a lady from out of state won, it was a grapevine wreath, wrapped with spanish moss and little air plants stuck here and there, and I glued different seashells all around, wove a ribbon through and tied a bow at the bottom.

This past spring the raccoons stole the top to one of my suet feeders when I forgot to bring it in at night and I hated to throw it away when I knew it could be used for something ... so I stuck a few air plants in it and it's still hanging in the magnolia tree. It only gets water when it rains, or once in a great while if I aim the garden hose in it's direction.

I was just in Daytona yesterday and saw the Spanish Moss and Ball Moss.

Clint: I hope you enjoyed your visit to the area! Most of Florida has lots of spanish moss and the ball moss, it's very common in parts of the south. I'm originally from coastal Virginia and we didn't have Tillandsia up there but I've lived in Florida for 47 years and I've always loved seeing the spanish moss "dripping" from the huge oak trees!

I went to both coasts. I found lots of Seashells at Bowman's Beach and enjoyed a visit to Melbourne Beach. I have always enjoyed visiting Florida. I plan on going back to Bowman's Beach for my fall break. Here is a photo of the moss I saw in the Orlando area.



Here are some of the seashells I found at Bowman's Beach. I loved that place!

Yep, that moss covered Oak tree is a familiar site down here!

Aaah, Bowman's Beach; the Sanibel Island area ... lovely place! My husband and I love the west coast of Florida; we have a 23' boat that we used to trailer over to the Sarasota area every year for vacation. We had plans on going this summer for a few days but time got away from us with other travels (New York and then California!) and then my husband had to go back to teaching.

Next summer we plan on spending a week in the Longboat Key/Brandenton Beach area or possibly farther south (Fort Myers, Sanibel etc.) The only place in Florida to find pretty seashells like those is Sanibel Island! In Sarasota Bay we used to find a few shells and thousands of Sand Dollars! I had a habit of collecting many, many sand dollars until I began feeling guilty because they were not washed ashore but rather I took them from the seabed. I still feel really bad about that but I was young and didn't think. Now even at the beach here in Daytona when I find a shell I always check to see if there is a creature living inside and if there is the shell gets tossed back into the water.

I used to collect shells and fill jars with white sand and seashells for display and I made wind chimes once using some seashells too. I remember a time years ago when my sister filled a clear glass lamp base with seashells which was really pretty. When my husband and I downsized houses and moved almost two years ago I gave some shells to a neighbor but I think there's probably a container still in the shed at our rental house. Next time I'm over there I will have to look for it! We used to find the prettiest bright purple sea stars (starfish) washed up on the sand here but I never could figure out how to preserve them! I have a couple of purchased starfish and one glass vase with shells sitting atop our 150 gal marine aquarium for decoration.


Ok, back on topic - Air Plants! I have a few that were left over from previous wreath projects that I just stuck beneath a potted palm tree on the deck and another is stuck in a crotch of the Bottle Brush tree. These are just the common type found in the trees here in Florida:

clintbrown said:There used to be these preserved plants people called air plants. They looked like ferns. I remember they didn't require soil or water. I told my mom they were just dead plants dyed green back then. We're talking over 20 years ago. Does anyone remember these and know what they are. I talked to a lady yesterday who was looking for them, and I told her I hadn't seen them in years. It's not the plant that is sold as air plant now. Those look like succulents almost. This looked soft and like a fern.

Yes, I remember these…I think they were called Resurrection fern. I believe the last time I saw them was in a 'Carol Wright' ? catalog, and also a 'Publishers Clearing House' sweeps flier.
And as I'm thinking about these…I also remember a very furry kind of 'air fern' that my late mother had that was a horrible 'dust catcher'.

Awww those are sad fates for such cool plants. Mine got too wide for the space between the trunks of the smaller tree, so I moved it to a bigger trunk.